It was about the same time last year when Apple offered up its iPhone at an unsubsidized price without the 2-year contract.  This preceded the launch of the iPhone 3GS, and again at Apple Retail stores you can purchase a brand new iPhone 3G or 3GS without the 2-year contract.  Apple is offering the 8GB iPhone 3G for $499, a 16GB iPhone 3GS for $599 and finally the 32GB iPhone 3GS for $699.  Now all these phones are unsubsidized contract free, carrier locked to the AT&T network, and only for sale in the US. 

This info came via an internal Apple employee document that our friends over at Gizmodo were able to get their hands on.  Some of the selling points in the document are customers are not required to have an AT&T contract, and customers can only purchase one iPhone per day.  This isn’t the only way to a an iPhone without an contract, people have been selling them on ebay and Craigslist for a long time now, but this is the only official way to get you hands on iPhone without committing to the 2-year AT&T agreement.  Now its all up to you what you do with it once you purchase it, if you want to unlock it for T-Mobile or other carriers.  You can follow our posts here at BlogsDNA on unlocking and jailbreaking your iPhone.